Chris Hedges's Blog, page 626

No Wall Means a Big Problem for Trump

You can tell what President Trump is afraid of by what he chooses to lie about. That means he must be petrified of losing support over his failure to build a single mile of the “big, beautiful” border wall he promised.

Trump is scared of a lot of things—Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, honest reporting by the news media, adult-film actress Stormy Daniels and, reportedly, sharks. But nothing seems to make him quake and tremble more than the fear that his core base will realize all his tough-guy huffing and puffing about Latino immigration was a bunch of hot air.

On Easter morning, while many of the president’s most loyal supporters were celebrating the Resurrection, Trump was dishonestly tweeting in a frantic attempt to look strong and uncompromising. His first tweet ended with this bleat: “‘Caravans’ coming. Republicans must go to Nuclear Option to pass tough laws NOW. NO MORE DACA DEAL!”

That requires some translation. Trump was apparently referring to a Fox News story—I know, you’re shocked—about a “caravan” of 1,200 would-be immigrants who say they are coming north through Mexico to enter the United States; they were last seen traveling on foot 900 miles south of the border, meaning the “threat” is less than imminent. The reference to the nuclear option is yet another call for the Senate to eliminate its filibuster rule, which Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has no intention of doing. And finally, Trump appeared to rule out any agreement on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program—which he canceled—allowing undocumented immigrants brought here as children to stay.

The president followed up with two more tweets, one blasting Mexico and threatening to “stop” the North American Free Trade Agreement, the other assailing imaginary “big flows of people” who are “trying to take advantage of DACA.”

First thing Monday morning, Trump was at it again. A 7:02 a.m. tweet blamed Mexico for allowing “these large ‘Caravans’ of people” to enter Mexico, which made no sense. A second attacked Congress and claimed that “our country is being stolen!” And the third must be quoted in its entirety:

“DACA is dead because the Democrats didn’t care or act, and now everyone wants to get onto the DACA bandwagon … No longer works. Must build Wall and secure our borders with proper Border legislation. Democrats want No Borders, hence drugs and crime!”

Leaving aside Trump’s rather Germanic approach to capitalization, that tweet is an occasion to paraphrase Mary McCarthy’s famous quip about Lillian Hellman: Virtually every word is a lie, including “and” and “the.” Democrats repeatedly offered to deal on DACA, as did Trump. No newcomers could possibly “get onto the DACA bandwagon,” since only immigrants who were brought here before 2007 are eligible. And immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born citizens.

Why such a frenzy of untruth? Because Trump apparently sees anger building among his most fervent supporters over his utter failure to deliver on what they understood as his central campaign promise: to halt or reverse the flow of Latino immigration and the “browning” of America.

That’s what this is really about. On the emotional level, Trump appealed to white Anglo chauvinism. He skillfully stoked the anger and resentment of those who are annoyed when they phone the electric company to straighten out a bill and are told to press one for English, press two for Spanish. When he writes things like “our country is being stolen,” it’s crystal-clear who’s supposed to be stealing it.

What I didn’t realize during the campaign was that Trump’s base realized he could never fulfill his absurd pledge to deport all of the estimated 11 million people who are here without papers. But his supporters did expect him to do something to stem what they see as an invasion—something concrete and unambiguous. Like the promised wall.

But a man with his name emblazoned on skyscrapers and golf courses around the globe, a man who fancies himself a master builder, has been unable to even begin construction of a new border wall. And some of the most vocal anti-immigration commentators—with influence among Trump’s base—have been getting restless.

I don’t know how to break this to you, folks, but Trump’s wall promise was no more serious than anything else that comes out of his mouth. His antipathy toward Latinos and other non-whites is genuine, I trust, but his ability to follow through is pure counterfeit. With all of his heart, he hopes you’re too stupid to notice.

Shooter Dead, 4 Wounded at YouTube HQ

SAN BRUNO, Calif.—A woman opened fire at YouTube’s headquarters in the San Francisco Bay Area Tuesday, wounding four people before she shot and killed herself and prompted panic as employees hid and tried to flee, police and witnesses said.

Officers and federal agents swarmed the company’s headquarters complex in the city of San Bruno as multiple 911 reports came in reporting gunfire.

San Bruno Police Chief Ed Barberini told reporters that the victims have gunshot wounds and were taken to hospitals.

A spokesman for San Francisco General Hospital says it received three patients. Spokesman Brent Andrew says a 36-year-old man was in critical condition, a 32-year-old woman was in serious condition and a 27-year-old woman was in fair condition.

The hospital was expecting more patients but Andrew did not know their conditions.

Television news footage showed people leaving the building in a line, holding their arms in the air for police to inspect as they were leaving the building. Officers patted down people to make sure none had weapons, and police vehicles surrounded the area

YouTube employee Vadim Lavrusik posted on Twitter that he heard gunshots and saw people running. He said he was barricaded in a room with his co-workers before being safely evacuated.

Will Hudson said a friend who works for YouTube texted him about the shooter.

“I think there might be a shooter in my building,” read one text. “The fire alarm went off so we started to evacuate and then people (started) running saying there was a shooter.”

Northern California’s Stanford Hospital said it has received four to five patients, but a hospital spokeswoman did not have information on their conditions or their wounds.

Google, which owns the world’s biggest online video website, posted on Twitter that the company is coordinating with authorities. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also said it responded to the shooting at YouTube’s suburban campus.

The White House said President Donald Trump was briefed on a shooting and that officials were monitoring it.

Hudson said his friend made it safely back to San Francisco and was in contact with his family. Hudson said he’s become used to hearing about gun violence but has never been so close to it before.

“It just feels strange. It feels like it could really be anyone. That’s really the strangeness of it,” he said.

Calls and emails to YouTube representatives seeking comment were not immediately returned.

The Bayer-Monsanto Merger Is Bad News for the Planet

Two new studies from Europe show that the number of birds in agricultural areas of France has crashed by a third in just 15 years, with some species being almost eradicated. The collapse in the bird population mirrors the discovery last October that more than three quarters of all flying insects in Germany have vanished in just three decades. Insects are the staple food source of birds, the pollinators of fruits and the aerators of the soil.

The chief suspect in this mass extinction is the aggressive use of neonicotinoid pesticides, particularly imidacloprid and clothianidin, both made by the Germany-based chemical giant Bayer. These pesticides, along with toxic glyphosate herbicides such as Roundup, have delivered a one-two punch to monarch butterflies, honeybees and birds. But rather than banning these toxic chemicals, on March 21 the EU approved the $66 billion merger of Bayer and Monsanto, the U.S. agribusiness giant that produces Roundup and the genetically modified (GMO) seeds that have reduced seed diversity globally. The merger will make the Bayer-Monsanto conglomerate the largest seed and pesticide company in the world, giving it enormous power to control farm practices, putting private profits over the public interest.

As Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren noted in a speech in December at the Open Markets Institute, massive companies are merging into market-dominating entities that invest a share of their profits in lobbying and financing political campaigns, shaping the political system to their own ends. She called on the Trump administration to veto the Bayer-Monsanto merger, which is still under antitrust scrutiny and has yet to be approved in the U.S.

A 2016 survey of Trump’s voter base found that more than half disapproved of the Monsanto-Bayer merger, fearing it would result in higher food prices and higher costs for farmers. Before 1990, there were 600 or more small, independent seed businesses globally, many of them family-owned. By 2009, only about 100 survived, and seed prices had more than doubled. But reining in these powerful conglomerates is more than just a question of economics. It may be a question of the survival of life on this planet.

While Bayer’s neonicotinoid pesticides wipe out insects and birds, Monsanto’s glyphosate has been linked to more than 40 human diseases, including cancer. Its seeds have been genetically modified to survive this toxic herbicide, but the plants absorb it into their tissues. In the humans who eat the plants, glyphosate disrupts the endocrine system and the balance of gut bacteria, damages DNA and is a driver of cancerous mutations. Researchers summarizing a 2014 study of glyphosates in the Journal of Organic Systems linked them to the huge increase in chronic diseases in the United States, with the percentage of GMO corn and soy planted in the U.S. showing highly significant correlations with hypertension, stroke, diabetes, obesity, lipoprotein metabolism disorder, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis, hepatitis C, end stage renal disease, acute kidney failure, cancers of the thyroid, liver, bladder, pancreas, kidney and myeloid leukaemia. But regulators have turned a blind eye, captured by corporate lobbyists and a political agenda that has more to do with power and control them protecting the health of the people.

The Trump administration has already approved a merger between former rivals Dow and DuPont, and has signed off on the takeover of Swiss pesticide giant Syngenta by ChemChina. If Monsanto-Bayer gets approved as well, just three corporations will dominate the majority of the world’s seed and pesticide markets, giving them enormous power to continue poisoning the planet at the expense of its inhabitants.

The Shady History of Bayer and the Petrochemical Cartel

To understand the magnitude of this threat, it is necessary to delve into some history. This is not the first time Monsanto and Bayer have joined forces. In both world wars, they made explosives and poisonous gases using shared technologies that they sold to both sides. After World War II, they united as MOBAY (MonsantoBayer) and supplied the ingredients for Agent Orange in the Vietnam War.

In fact, corporate mergers and cartels have played a central role in Bayer’s history. In 1904, it joined with German giants BASF and AGFA to form the first chemical cartel. After World War I, Germany’s entire chemical industry merged to become I.G. Farben. By the beginning of World War II, I.G. Farben was the largest industrial corporation in Europe, the largest chemical company in the world, and part of the most gigantic and powerful cartel in all history.

A cartel is a grouping of companies bound by agreements designed to restrict competition and keep prices high. The dark history of the I.G. Farben cartel was detailed in a 1974 book titled “World Without Cancer,” by G. Edward Griffin, who also wrote the best-selling “Creature from Jekyll Island,” on the shady history of the Federal Reserve. Griffin quoted from a book titled “Treason’s Peace,” by Howard Ambruster, an American chemical engineer who had studied the close relations between the German chemical trust and certain American corporations. Ambruster warned:

Farben is no mere industrial enterprise conducted by Germans for the extraction of profits at home and abroad. Rather, it is and must be recognized as a cabalistic organization which, through foreign subsidiaries and secret tie-ups, operates a far-flung and highly efficient espionage machine—the ultimate purpose being world conquest … and a world superstate directed by Farben.

The I.G. Farben cartel arose out of the international oil industry. Coal tar or crude oil is the source material for most commercial chemical products, including those used in drugs and explosives. I.G. Farben established cartel agreements with hundreds of American companies. They had little choice but to capitulate after the Rockefeller empire, represented by Standard Oil of New Jersey, did so, because they could not hope to compete with the Rockefeller-I.G. combination.

The Rockefeller group’s greatest influence was exerted through international finance and investment banking, putting them in control of a wide spectrum of industry. Their influence was particularly heavy in pharmaceuticals. The directors of the American I.G. Chemical Company included Paul Warburg, brother of a director of the parent company in Germany and a chief architect of the Federal Reserve system.

The I.G. Farben cartel was technically disbanded at the Nuremberg trials following World War II, but in fact it merely split into three new companies—Bayer, Hoescht and BASF—which remain pharmaceutical giants today. To conceal its checkered history, Bayer orchestrated a merger with Monsanto in 1954, giving rise to the MOBAY Corp. In 1964, the U.S. Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit against MOBAY and insisted that it be broken up, but the companies continued to work together unofficially.

In “Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation” (2007), William Engdahl states that global food control and depopulation became U.S. strategic policy under Rockefeller protégé Henry Kissinger, who was secretary of state in the 1970s. Along with oil geopolitics, these policies were to be the new “solution” to the threats to U.S. global power and continued U.S. access to cheap raw materials from the developing world. “Control oil and you control nations,” Kissinger notoriously declared. “Control food and you control the people.”

Global food control has nearly been achieved, by reducing seed diversity and establishing proprietary control with GMO seeds distributed by only a few transnational corporations, led by Monsanto; and by a massive, taxpayer-subsidized propaganda campaign in support of GMO seeds and neurotoxic pesticides. A de facto cartel of giant chemical, drug, oil, banking and insurance companies connected by interlocking directorates reaps the profits at both ends, by waging a very lucrative pharmaceutical assault on the diseases created by their toxic agricultural chemicals.

Going Organic: The Russian Approach

In the end, the Green Revolution engineered by Kissinger to control markets and ensure U.S. economic dominance may be our nemesis. While the U.S. struggles to maintain its hegemony by economic coercion and military force, Russia is winning the battle for the health of the people and the environment. Russian President Vladimir Putin has banned GMOs and has set out to make Russia the world’s leading supplier of organic food.

Russian families are showing what can be done with permaculture methods on simple garden plots. In 2011, 40 percent of Russia’s food was grown on dachas (cottage gardens or allotments), predominantly organically. Dacha gardens produced more than 80 percent of the country’s fruit and berries, more than 66 percent of the vegetables, almost 80 percent of the potatoes and nearly 50 percent of the nation’s milk, much of it consumed raw. Russian author Vladimir Megre comments:

Essentially, what Russian gardeners do is demonstrate that gardeners can feed the world—and you do not need any GMOs, industrial farms, or any other technological gimmicks to guarantee everybody’s got enough food to eat. Bear in mind that Russia only has 110 days of growing season per year—so in the US, for example, gardeners’ output could be substantially greater. Today, however, the area taken up by lawns in the US is two times greater than that of Russia’s gardens—and it produces nothing but a multi-billion-dollar lawn care industry.

In the U.S., only about 0.6 percent of the total agricultural area is devoted to organic farming. Most farmland is soaked in pesticides and herbicides. But the need for these toxic chemicals is a myth. In an October 2017 article in The Guardian, columnist George Monbiot cited studies showing that reducing the use of neonicotinoid pesticides actually increases production, because the pesticides harm or kill the pollinators on which crops depend. Rather than an international trade agreement that would enable giant transnational corporations to dictate to governments, he argues that we need a global treaty to regulate pesticides and require environmental impact assessments for farming. He writes:

Farmers and governments have been comprehensively conned by the global pesticide industry. It has ensured its products should not be properly regulated or even, in real-world conditions, properly assessed. … The profits of these companies depend on ecocide. Do we allow them to hold the world to ransom, or do we acknowledge that the survival of the living world is more important than returns to their shareholders?

President Trump has boasted of winning awards for environmental protection. If he is sincere about championing the environment, he needs to block the merger of Bayer and Monsanto, two agribusiness giants bent on destroying the ecosystem for private profit.

Trump: We’re Sending Troops to the Mexican Border

WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump said Tuesday he wants to use the military to secure the U.S.-Mexico border until his promised border wall is built.

Speaking at a lunch with Baltic leaders, Trump said he’s been discussing the idea with his Defense Secretary, Jim Mattis.

“We’re going to be doing things militarily. Until we can have a wall and proper security, we’re going to be guarding our border with the military,” he said, calling the measure a “big step.”

“We really haven’t done that before, or certainly not very much before,” he said.

Trump has been deeply frustrated about the lack of progress building what was the signature promise of his campaign: a “big, beautiful wall” along the Mexican border. He’s previously suggested using the Pentagon’s budget to pay for building the wall, arguing it is a national security priority, despite strict rules that prohibit spending that’s not authorized by Congress.

The Department of Homeland Security, Pentagon and White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment on how such a plan might work.

Sending military to the border, in the form of National Guard troops, has been done before. In 2006, under Operation Jump Start, 6,000 troops were sent to the border in an effort to increase security and surveillance. The operation used the National Guard to assist border patrol with non-law enforcement duties while additional border agents were hired and trained.

The number declined during the second year to about 3,000.

Over the two years, about 29,000 National Guard forces participated in the missions, as forces rotated in and out.

The Guard members were used for surveillance, communications, administrative support, intelligence, analysis and, in some cases, the installation of border security infrastructure. Over the two years, more than 30 miles of fencing and 13 miles of road were built, and more than 86 miles of vehicle barriers were installed.

Active duty U.S. troops were not used for the operation because there are prohibitions on using so-called Title 10 troops for law enforcement and similar duties within the United States.

In addition, President Barack Obama sent about 1,200 National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border in 2010 to beef up efforts to battle drug smuggling and illegal immigration. Again, the troops did intelligence, surveillance, analysis and other support as more border patrol and customs agents were hired.

At that time, officials also emphasized that the Guard forces would not be working on the front lines or interacting with people crossing the border.

Trump’s announcement came a day administration officials said they’re crafting a new legislative package aimed at closing immigration “loopholes.”

Trump also called on Republican lawmakers to immediately pass a border bill using the “Nuclear Option if necessary” to muscle it through, as part of a flurry of tweets on the subject over the last several days.

The president has also been declaring protections for so-called Dreamer immigrants “dead,” accusing Democrats of allowing “open borders, drugs and crime” and warning Mexico to halt the passage of “caravans” of immigrants or risk U.S. abandonment of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Trump has been seething since realizing the major spending bill he signed last month barely funds the wall he has promised supporters. The $1.3 trillion funding package included $1.6 billion in border wall spending — far less than the $25 billion Trump made a last-minute push to secure. And much of that money can be used only to repair existing segments, not to build new sections.

Among the new measures the administration is pursuing: ending special safeguards that prevent the immediate deportation of children arrested at the border and traveling alone. Under current law, unaccompanied children from countries that don’t border the U.S. are turned over to the Department of Health and Human Services and undergo often lengthy deportation proceedings before an immigration judge instead of being immediately deported.

The administration is also pushing Congress to terminate a 1997 court settlement that requires the government to release children from custody to parents, adult relatives or other caretakers as their court cases proceed. Officials complain that many children never show up at their hearings.

The proposals appear the same as those included on an immigration wish list the White House released in October but failed to gain traction during negotiations over the border wall. Such proposals are likely to face opposition from moderate Republicans and Democrats going into the midterm elections. But Trump appears intent on ensuring the issues remain at the forefront of public conversation, even though the spending bill was widely seen as the last major legislation likely passed this year.

Trump’s past calls to for the “nuclear option” — changing Senate rules so that a simple majority of 51 votes is needed to advance legislation, instead of the current 60 votes — have been dismissed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. McConnell says Republicans will welcome the 60-vote margin if they return to the minority. The current 51-49 Senate split favors Republicans.

Trump announced last year that he was ending DACA, the program that protects young “Dreamer” immigrants and allows them to work legally in the country, but the Department of Homeland Security is continuing to issue renewals because of a court order.

Notably, Trump’s favored solution for extending the protections mustered only 39 votes in the Senate, meaning it couldn’t have passed even if the rules had been changed.

Trump also warned Mexico to halt the passage of about 1,100 migrants, many from Honduras, who had been marching in a caravan along roadsides and train tracks in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca.

“If it reaches our border, our laws are so weak and so pathetic,” Trump claimed. “It’s like we have no border.”

These “Stations of the Cross” migrant caravans have been held in southern Mexico for at least the last five years. They began as short processions of migrants, some dressed in biblical garb and carrying crosses, as an Easter-season protest against attacks against Central Americans as they cross Mexico.

The caravan that once numbered 1,150 or more people actually halted days ago in the town of Matias Romero in the southern state of Oaxaca, where participants slept out in the open. After days of walking along roadsides and train tracks, the organizers now plan to try to get buses to take participants to the final event, an immigrants’ rights conference in the central state of Puebla later this week.

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Associated Press writers Elliot Spagat in San Diego; Lolita C. Baldor, Catherine Lucey, Darlene Superville, Lisa Mascaro, Kevin Freking and Zeke Miller in Washington; and Mark Stevenson in Mexico City contributed to this report.

Role of Youths in the Coming Transformation

The eruption of youth protests over gun violence in schools and other issues is another indicator that the 2020s could be a decade of transformation where people demand economic, racial and environmental justice as well as peace. Students who are in their teens now will be in their twenties then. They will have experience in how protests can change political culture.

Some view the youth awakening in these protests as reminiscent of youth movements in previous generations, others are less optimistic. We cannot predict the role this generation will play, but throughout the history of mass movements, youth have been a key factor by pushing boundaries and demanding change.

One of the slogans in the actions against gun violence is “adults failed to solve the problem.” The truth is, as many youth are aware, those currently in power have failed on many fronts, e.g. climate change, wealth disparity, racial injustice, never-ending wars and militarism, lack of health care and more. These crises are coming to a head and provide the environment for transformational changes, if we act.

Beware of Democratic Party Co-option

One of the challenges youth, and older, activists face is the Democratic Party. Democrats have a long history of co-opting political movements. They are present in recent mobilizations, such as the Women’s March and March for our Lives, which both centered on voting as the most important action to take.

Big Democratic Party donors, like George and Amal Clooney, provided massive resources to the March for Our Lives. The corporate media covered the students extensively, encouraged attendance at the marches and reported widely on them.

As Bruce Dixon writes, “It’s not hard to see the hand of the Democratic party behind the tens of millions in corporate contributions and free media accorded the March For Our Lives mobilization. 2018 is a midterm election year, and November is only seven months away. The Democrats urgently need some big sticks with which to beat out the vote this fall…”

Democratic politicians see the gun issue as an opportunity for the ‘Blue Wave’ they envision for 2018, even though the Democrat’s history of confronting gun violence has been dismal. When Democrats controlled Congress and the presidency, they did not challenge the culture of violence, confront the NRA or stop militarized policing that is resulting in hundreds of killings by police.

Ajamu Baraka writes, “Liberals and Democrat party connected organizations and networks have been quite adept at getting out in front of movements to pre-empt their radical potential and steer them back into the safe arms of liberal conformism.” Indeed the history of the Democratic Party since its founding as a slave-owners party has been one of absorbing political movements and weakening them.

For this new generation of activists to reach their potential, they must understand we live in a mirage democracy and cannot elect our way out of these crises. Our tasks are much larger. Violence is deeply embedded in US culture, dating to the founding of the nation when gun laws were designed for white colonizers to take land from Indigenous peoples and control black slaves.

When it comes to using the gun issue for elections, the challenge for the Democrats is “to keep the public anger high, but the discussion shallow, limited, and ahistorical,” as Bruce Dixon writes. Our task is to understand the roots of the crises we face.

Historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz describes this in her new book, Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment. The culture of violence in the US goes beyond the horrific shooting in schools to the militarization of our communities and military aggression abroad. The US military has killed more than 20 million people in 37 nations since World War II.

One step you can take in your community is to find out if there is a Junior ROTC program in your local school and shut it down.

Potential for Youth to Lead in Era of Transformation

One of the reasons we predict the 2020s may be an era of transformation is because issues that have been ignored or mishandled by powerholders are becoming so extreme they can no longer be ignored. Bruce Dixon of Black Agenda Report writes the gun protests present an opportunity to highlight all the issues where Democrats (and Republicans) have failed us.

Youth are already involved, often playing leadership roles, in many fronts of struggle. Rev. Jared Sawyer, Jr. writes that when racial violence arose at the “University of Missouri in recent years, student athletes and scholars united in protest, prompting the administration to take action. Organizations like Black Youth Power 100 have arisen in the wake of police” violence against black people. Youth are on the front lines of the environmental movement, blocking pipelines and carbon infrastructure to prevent climate change. Youth are leading the movement to protect immigrants from mass deportation.

This week, Hampton students took to the streets over sexual violence, housing, food and other problems on campus. Students at Howard University started HU Resist, to “make sure that Howard University fulfills its mission.” They are in their third day of occupying the administration building.

At March for Our Lives protests, some participants saw the connections between gun violence and other issues. Tom Hall reported that those who “attended the rally had far more on their minds than gun control and the midterm elections—the issues promoted by the media and the Democratic Party. Many sought to connect the epidemic of mass shootings in American schools to broader issues, from the promotion of militarism and war, to poverty and social inequality.” Youth also talked about tax cuts for the rich, inadequate healthcare, teacher strikes, the need for jobs and a better quality of life. He noted those who attended were “searching for a political perspective,” and that, while it was not seen from the stage, opposition to war was a common concern.

Robert Koehler writes, “This emerging movement must address the whole spectrum of violence.”  He includes racist violence, military violence, mass incarceration and the “mortally sinful corporate greed and of course, the destruction of the environment and all the creatures.” What unites all of these issues, Koehler writes, is the “ability to dehumanize certain people.” Dehumanization is required to allow mass murder, whether by a single gunman or in war, as well as the economic violence that leaves people homeless and hungry, or for the violence of denying people necessary healthcare and to pay people so little they need multiple jobs to survive.

Movements are Growing, Now How Do We Win?

We have written about the stages of successful social movements and that overall the United States is in the final stage before victory. This is the era of building national consensus on solutions to the crises we face and mobilizing millions to take action in support of these solutions.

Protests have been growing in the US over the past few decades. Strong anti-globalization protests were organized under Clinton to oppose the World Trade Organization. Under the Bush administration, hundreds of thousands of people took the streets against the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq. The anti-war movement faded under the Obama administration, even though he escalated US militarism, but other movements arose such as Occupy, immigrant’s rights, the fight for 15, Idle No More and black lives matter. Erica Chenowith posits that current youth activists “did their first activism with their moms. It’s a quicker learning curve for kids.”

At present, large drivers of mass protests are reaction to the actions of the Trump administration and the Democrats using their resources to augment and steer anti-Trump anger into elections. To prevent what happened to the anti-war movement under President Obama, people will need a broader understanding of the root causes of the crises we face, not the shallow analysis provided by the corporate media, and will need to understand how social movements can be effective.

To assist in this education, Popular Resistance is launching the Popular Resistance School. The first eight week course will begin on May 1 and will cover social movement theory – how social movements develop, how they win and roles people and organizations play in movements. All are welcome to participate in the school. There is no cost to join, but we do ask those who are able to donate to help cover the costs.

For more information on the school and to sign up, click here. Those who sign up will receive a weekly video lecture, a curriculum and an invitation to join a discussion group (each one will be limited to 30 participants). People who complete the course can then host the course locally with virtual support from Popular Resistance.

The next decade has the potential to be transformative. To make it so, we must not only develop national consensus that issues are being mishandled, that policies need to change and that we can change them, but we must also educate ourselves on issues and how to be effective. We have the power to create the change we want to see.

Quota of 700 Cases a Year Imposed on Immigration Judges

SAN DIEGO—The Trump administration has introduced production quotas for immigration judges in an effort to reduce enormous court backlogs, raising concern among judges and attorneys that decisions may be unfairly rushed.

The Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review said judges must complete 700 cases a year to earn a satisfactory grade. The standards, which take effect Oct. 1, include six other measures indicating how much time judges should spend on different types of cases and court motions.

The move, while significant, didn’t come as a surprise. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who oversees immigration courts, has sought major changes to the long-clogged courts as a sharp increase in deportation arrests under President Donald Trump has pushed the backlog above 650,000 cases. In December, Sessions wrote judges that performance measures would aid in “the efficient and timely completion of cases and motions” while maintaining fairness.

James McHenry, director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review, used similar language in an email Friday that details the new measures for the department’s approximately 350 immigration judges.

“Using metrics to evaluate performance is neither novel nor unique to (the Executive Office for Immigration Review),” McHenry wrote. “The purpose of implementing these metrics is to encourage efficient and effective case management while preserving immigration judge discretion and due process.”

The Associated Press obtained a copy of McHenry’s memo and performance plan, whose contents were first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

The measures are highly specific. A judge who completes more than 560 cases a year but fewer than 700 “needs improvement.” Deciding fewer than 560 cases a year is deemed unsatisfactory.

The Justice Department said Monday that judges complete an average of 678 cases a year.

Under one benchmark, judges must rule the same day on every plea by asylum seekers to pass an initial threshold of establishing “credible” or “reasonable” fear to earn a satisfactory mark, unless the Homeland Security Department is responsible for them failing to show. Anything less than 80 percent is considered unsatisfactory.

The National Immigration Judges Association, whose recent collective bargaining agreement allows for performance metrics, strongly opposes the numerical targets and will explore options under federal labor law, said Dana Leigh Marks, a union spokeswoman.

“We believe the imposition of numerical performance metrics is completely, utterly contrary to judicial independence,” said Marks, who is also an immigration judge in San Francisco. “We believe assessing quality is fine, not quantity.”

Judges can argue that the nature of their cases justifies a lower completion rate, but Marks said keeping logs will add to their work burden and potentially create more backlog. She also said people may be more inclined to appeal decisions by arguing that the quotas denied them a fair hearing.

Laura Lynch, senior policy counsel for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said immigration attorneys were deeply concerned that cases will be “rushed through.”

“Subjecting judges to numerical goals undermines one of the core principles of our judicial system, which is really a fair day in court,” she said.

Trump Pushes GOP to Change Senate Rule in Order to Pass Border Bill

WASHINGTON — Trump administration officials said Monday they’re crafting a new legislative package aimed at closing immigration “loopholes,” hours after the president called on Republicans in Congress to immediately pass a border bill using the “Nuclear Option if necessary” to muscle it through.

“Border Patrol Agents (and ICE) are GREAT, but the weak Dem laws don’t allow them to do their job. Act now Congress, our country is being stolen!” President Trump wrote in a series of sometimes-misleading tweets, fired off after returning from a holiday weekend spent in Florida with several immigration hard-liners.

Trump also declared protections for so-called Dreamer immigrants “dead,” claimed the U.S. has “no effective border laws” and warned Mexico to halt the passage of “caravans” of illegal immigrants or risk retribution.

“They must stop the big drug and people flows, or I will stop their cash cow, NAFTA. NEED WALL!” he wrote.

Trump has been seething over immigration since realizing the major spending bill he signed last month barely funds the “big, beautiful” border wall he has promised his supporters. The $1.3 trillion funding package included $1.6 billion in border wall spending, but much of that money can be used only to repair existing segments, not to build new sections.

Among the measures the administration is pursuing: ending special safeguards that prevent the immediate deportation of children arrested at the border and traveling alone. Under current law, unaccompanied children from countries that don’t border the U.S. would be placed under the supervision of the Department of Health and Human Services and undergo often-lengthy deportation proceedings before an immigration judge instead of being deported.

The administration is also pushing Congress to terminate a 1997 court settlement that requires the government to release children from custody to parents, adult relatives or other caretakers as their cases make their way through immigration court. Officials complain that many children never show up at their hearings.

The proposals appear the same as those included on a White House immigration wish list that was released in October but failed to gain traction during negotiations over the border wall. Such proposals are likely to face opposition from moderate Republicans and Democrats going into the midterm elections. But Trump appears intent on ensuring the issues remain at the forefront of public conversation, even though the omnibus was widely seen as the last major legislation likely passed this year.

In his Easter weekend tweets and comments, Trump continued to blame Democrats for killing the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program despite the fact that he was the one who moved to end the program. He also claimed DACA, which has provided temporary protection from deportation and work permits to hundreds of thousands of young people, is luring people to cross the border illegally, even though the program — and most proposals to replace it — have never been open to new arrivals.

Trump spent much of the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago club, having meals with his family, watching cable news shows and rubbing elbows with conservative commentators including Fox News host Sean Hannity, according to several club members. Also spotted at the club: championship golfer Dustin Johnson, MyPillow maker Michael J. Lindell, boxing promoter Don King and former New York Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik.

Staffers with Trump over the holiday included policy adviser Stephen Miller, one of the chief architects of the administration’s anti-immigration policies, but not his chief of staff John Kelly or his elder daughter, Ivanka, both considered more moderate influences.

Trump’s past calls to use the “nuclear option” — changing the Senate rules to require a simple majority of 51 votes to override a rule instead of 60 — have been repeatedly dismissed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who argues Republicans will welcome the filibuster if they return to being the Senate minority. The current split is 51-49 favoring Republicans.

Notably, Trump’s favored DACA solution mustered only 39 votes in the Senate, meaning it couldn’t have passed even if the Senate did approve the changes.

Trump’s tweets calling on Mexico to halt “caravans” filled with immigrants in the country illegally came after a “Fox & Friends” report early Sunday that featured the leader of the union representing border patrol agents predicting that those in the caravan would create havoc and chaos in the U.S. as they wait for immigration reform.

About 1,100 migrants, many from Honduras, have been marching along roadsides and train tracks in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca.

These “Stations of the Cross” migrant caravans have been held in southern Mexico for at least the last five years. They began as short processions of migrants, some dressed in biblical garb and carrying crosses, as an Easter-season protest against the kidnappings, extortion, beatings and killings suffered by many Central American migrants as they cross Mexico.

Individuals in the caravans often try to reach the U.S. border but usually not as part of the caravan. The caravans typically don’t proceed much farther north than the Gulf coast state of Veracruz. The current march is scheduled to end this month with a conference on migration issues in the central Mexican state of Puebla.

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Associated Press writers Elliot Spagat in San Diego; Catherine Lucey, Darlene Superville, Lisa Mascaro, Kevin Freking and Zeke Miller in Washington; and Mark Stevenson in Mexico City contributed to this report.

Israel in Deal to Resettle Africa Migrants, Then Backtracks

JERUSALEM — Israel announced a deal with the U.N. on Monday to resettle African migrants in Western nations, but hours later put the agreement on hold.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had announced the deal on national TV, saying Israel agreed to cancel the planned expulsion of tens of thousands of African migrants. He said the deal with the United Nations called for sending half of them to Western nations and allowing the rest to remain in Israel.

Late Monday, Netanyahu said he was “suspending” the deal in order to discuss the arrangement Tuesday with Israeli residents of south Tel Aviv areas with large migrant populations.

“After meeting with the representatives I will re-examine the agreement again,” he said.

Under the deal, roughly half of the 35,000 migrants living in Israel would be resettled in the West. But the rest would stay in Israel.

The migrant community is concentrated in south Tel Aviv, angering longtime Israeli residents of the working-class area. Israeli hard-liners had criticized the deal for allowing so many Africans to remain.

The late-night turnaround threw into limbo the surprise agreement, which had finally offered a solution to an issue that has divided Israel for a decade. The deportation plan had been widely criticized at home and abroad, even by some of Israel’s closest supporters.

“It’s a good agreement,” Netanyahu told reporters earlier in the day. “It enables us to solve this problem in a way that serves, protects the interests of the state of Israel and gives a solution to the residents of southern Tel Aviv and other neighborhoods, and also for the people who came into Israel.”

Most of the African migrants are from war-torn Sudan and Eritrea, the latter having one of the world’s worst human rights records. The migrants say they are asylum-seekers fleeing danger and persecution, while Israeli leaders have claimed they are merely job seekers.

The Africans started arriving in 2005, after neighboring Egypt violently quashed a refugee demonstration and word spread of safety and job opportunities in Israel. Tens of thousands crossed the porous desert border with Egypt before Israel completed a barrier in 2012 that stopped the influx.

Israel has struggled with what to do with those already in the country, alternating between plans to deport them and offering them menial jobs in hotels and local municipalities.

Due to the large migrant presence, poor neighborhoods in south Tel Aviv have become known as “Little Africa.” Working-class Jewish residents have complained of rising crime and pressed the government to take action.

But the migrants also found wide pockets of support, with many Israelis arguing that the country, founded in the wake of the Holocaust, had a special responsibility to help those in need.

Thousands of Africans and their Israeli supporters held a demonstration in February claiming the deportation plan amounted to racism. Groups of Israeli doctors, academics, poets, Holocaust survivors, rabbis and pilots also objected to the planned expulsion.

Critics at home and in the Jewish American community had called the government’s deportation plans unethical and a stain on Israel’s image as a refuge for Jewish migrants.

Before Monday’s announcement, the government had remained steadfast, bristling at what it considered cynical comparisons to the plight of Jewish refugees during World War II.

Over the years, Israel threatened the migrants with prison, placed them in a now-shuttered desert detention camp and tried to persuade them to leave by offering them money and a one-way ticket to Africa. After those options failed, it announced plans to begin deporting them to an unidentified African country — believed to be Rwanda or Uganda — on April 1.

Netanyahu said the plan was scrapped after it became clear that the “third country,” which he again did not identify, could not handle the influx.

“From the moment in the past few weeks that it became clear that the third country as an option doesn’t exist, we basically entered a trap where all of them would remain,” he said.

He described Monday’s compromise as the best available option.

In his Facebook post announcing the deal’s suspension, Netanyahu accused the New Israel Fund, a liberal advocacy group, and “elements” in the European Union of derailing a deal with Rwanda.

Migrants who earlier agreed to return to Africa had reported abuses and broken promises after arriving in Rwanda. In some cases, their travel papers were confiscated or they were quickly sent to Uganda. Both Rwanda and Uganda denied having any agreement with Israel.

Meir Ben-Shabbat, Netanyahu’s national security adviser, said the U.N. plan would be carried out in three phases over five years.

In all, the United Nations would resettle about 16,250 people, while Israel would absorb the same number. “A committee will be formed in order to identify them and find agreed solutions,” Ben-Shabbat said.

Shlomo Mor-Yosef, a senior official at Israel’s Interior Ministry, said migrants would be taken in throughout the European Union as well as in Canada and the United States.

Italy and Germany, two countries identified by Netanyahu as likely destinations, both denied having any agreement in place.

Canadian officials said they were in touch with Israel about the matter. Mathieu Genest, a spokesman for Canada’s immigration minister, said his government was reviewing over 1,800 requests by Eritreans to resettle in Canada. He noted that Canada has pledged to resettle a total of 4,000 Eritrean refugees by the end of the year.

As part of the framework, Israel said it would rehabilitate and develop affected neighborhoods in south Tel Aviv, while also resettling African migrants elsewhere in the country.

The U.N. refugee agency said it signed a framework of common understanding “to promote solutions for thousands of Eritreans and Sudanese living in Israel.” The UNHCR said it would work to relocate about 16,000 Sudanese and Eritrean nationals and that others would receive “suitable legal status in Israel.”

Monim Haroon, a 28-year-old university student in Jerusalem who fled Darfur five years ago, expressed relief after the deal was announced.

“As asylum seekers we don’t care where we are going to be as long as it is a safe place, and these countries are willing to protect us and we can live with human dignity,” he said.

In a joint statement, a group of Israeli rights organizations praised Monday’s agreement and vowed to monitor it to make sure it was respected.

“We are extremely happy for the refugees,” said Sigal Rozen, of the Hotline for Refugees and Migrants. “We really hope that the Israeli government will stop abusing them and will respect their rights as refugees.”

Mark Hetfield, president of HIAS, a Jewish nonprofit in the U.S. that protects refugees, praised the deal as “responsible” and “consistent with Jewish values.” He said the group would work with Israel and resettlement countries to aid the migrants.

“The timing of this announcement, during Passover, could not have been more appropriate as these asylum seekers, like our ancestors, all crossed the Sinai in search of freedom,” he said.

Not everyone was pleased. Cabinet Minister Naftali Bennett, leader of the nationalist Jewish Home party, said the deal turned Israel into a “paradise for infiltrators.” He called for the plan to be brought to the Cabinet for a vote.

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Associated Press writers David McHugh in Frankfurt, Colleen Barry in Milan and Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this report.

U.S. Opens Door to Possible Trump-Putin White House Meeting

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration opened the door to a potential White House meeting between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, raising the possibility of an Oval Office welcome for Putin for the first time in more than a decade even as relations between the two powers have deteriorated.

The Kremlin said Monday that Trump had invited the Russian leader to the White House when they spoke by telephone last month. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders responded that the White House was among “a number of potential venues” discussed. Both sides said they hadn’t started preparations for such a visit.

If it happens, Putin would be getting the honor of an Oval Office tete-a-tete for the first time since he met President George W. Bush at the White House in 2005. Alarms rang in diplomatic and foreign policy circles over the prospect that Trump might offer Putin that venue without confronting him about Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election or allegations that Russia masterminded the March 4 nerve agent attack on a former Russian double agent.

“It would confer a certain normalization of relations and we’re certainly not in a normal space,” said Alina Polyakova, a foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Institution. “Nothing about this is normal.”

Much has happened since Trump and Putin spoke in the March 20 phone call. Trump said afterward he hoped to meet with Putin “in the not too distant future” to discuss the nuclear arms race and other matters. But their call was followed by reports that Trump had been warned in briefing materials not to congratulate the Russian president on his re-election but did so anyway.

Since the call, two dozen countries, including the U.S. and many European Union nations, and NATO expelled more than 150 Russian diplomats in solidarity with Britain over the poisoning of Sergei Skripal, the former spy, and his daughter Yulia. Moscow has denied any involvement in the nerve attack and retaliated by expelling the same number of diplomats from each nation.

Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, told reporters Monday that when the two leaders spoke by phone, “Trump suggested to have the first meeting in Washington, in the White House,” calling it a “quite interesting and positive idea.”

Ushakov voiced hope that tensions resulting from the diplomatic expulsions wouldn’t derail discussions about a summit.

Trump has said maintaining a strong personal relationship with Putin is in the U.S. interest and has signaled to allies that he trusts his own instincts in dealing with the Russian president.

A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity to describe private discussions, said Trump raised the possibility of a White House meeting in a “casual, open-ended” fashion during the call. The official reiterated that no extensive preparations had taken place.

Talk of a White House summit comes as Trump is preparing to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at an undetermined location. White House welcomes are typically reserved for friends and allies.

Trump has avoided criticizing Putin personally even as his administration has crossed Moscow by providing Ukraine with lethal weapons and upholding Obama-era sanctions against Russia and its shuttering of diplomatic outposts.

Michael McFaul, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Russia under President Barack Obama, said the “symbolism of Putin standing in the East Room with the president at a news conference” would be a major goal for the Russian leader. “The only reason you should do it is if you’re going to obtain a concrete objective that serves America’s national security interest before the meeting,” he said.

McFaul said he feared that Trump “thinks that a good meeting with Putin is the objective of his foreign policy with Russia. That should never be the objective. That should be the means to achieve things that are actually of importance to the United States.”

Trump had already fallen under sharp criticism from some Republican lawmakers for congratulating Putin on his re-election during the call and for not raising the ex-spy’s poisoning. The fact that Trump also extended a White House invitation during that call was likely to increase concerns that Trump, when in direct contact with Putin, is inclined to offer olive branches and reluctant to raise difficult issues.

“I worry that Trump wittingly or unwittingly may be sending a more positive signal to Putin than he deserves,” said Nicholas Burns, a top State Department official during the Bush administration who also served as U.S. ambassador to NATO.

Russia’s disclosure of the invitation came the day before the leaders of three Baltic countries — Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia — were to visit the White House. The three NATO nations are seen as a bulwark against Russia’s aspirations of extended influence west of its border.

Trump has met Putin twice as president, at the Group of 20 summit in Germany last summer and briefly at the Asia-Pacific economic summit in Vietnam in November.

Putin, who was president of Russia once before, visited the White House in 2005, when Bush welcomed him in the East Room as “my friend.”

Putin has been to other parts of the U.S. frequently in recent years, including a visit to the Bush family compound in Maine. Putin’s meetings with Obama occurred at international summits and along the sidelines of the United Nations gathering in New York.

Obama met Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at the White House in 2010, when the pair also chowed down on burgers at a popular hamburger joint outside the capital.

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Associated Press writers Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow and Josh Lederman in Washington contributed to this report.

Rep. Elizabeth Esty Won’t Seek Re-Election Amid Harassment Queries

HARTFORD, Conn. — U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Esty announced Monday she will not seek re-election this year amid calls for her resignation over her handling of the firing of a former chief of staff accused of harassment, threats and violence against female staffers in her congressional office.

Esty, a Democrat from Connecticut and an outspoken #MeToo advocate, was accused of not protecting female staffers from the ex-chief of staff. Esty has said she regrets not moving along an internal investigation into the allegations, which revealed more widespread allegations of abuse, and regrets providing “even the slightest assistance to this individual as he sought a new job.”

Esty said she determined “that it is in the best interest of my constituents and my family to end my time in Congress at the end of this year and not seek re-election.”

Her announcement came hours after she asked the House Ethics Committee to review her actions.

“Although we worked with the House Employment Counsel to investigate and ultimately dismiss this employee for his outrageous behavior with a former staffer, I believe it is important for the House Ethics Committee to conduct its own inquiry into this matter,” Esty said in a written statement, acknowledging “it certainly was far from a perfect process.”

Esty said she wants the committee to “clarify whether there was any wrongdoing” on her part.

A lawyer for the committee said he could not comment on Esty’s request for an investigation. It’s unclear whether an investigative subcommittee will be created or how long the process might take.

The request for an expedited probe from Esty came amid calls for her resignation from a growing number of state politicians in Connecticut, including fellow Democrats. Bob Duff, the Democratic state Senate’s majority leader, was among those to urge Esty to step down in the midst of her third-term.

Duff said several points led him to call for Esty’s resignation, including her reluctance to speak out publicly about the situation and using taxpayer money to pay her former chief of staff, Tony Baker, about $5,000 in severance. Staffers said Esty repaid the federal government last week with her personal funds.

A spokesman for Baker, the former chief of staff, told Hearst Connecticut Media and the Washington Post that he denies some of the allegations. A phone number listed for a Tony Baker in Columbus, Ohio, where the spokesman said the former chief of staff was living, was disconnected.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi commended Esty’s former employee Anna Kain for coming forward and telling her story. Pelosi stopped short of calling on the congresswoman to resign.

“As Congresswoman Esty has acknowledged, her actions did not protect Ms. Kain and should have,” Pelosi said in a written statement. “Congresswoman Esty has now appropriately requested an expedited review by the Ethics Committee.”

In her letter to committee members, Esty said she learned through a third party in 2016 about possible misconduct by Baker involving a former staffer, who worked in her office from January 2013 to March 2015. Esty said she fired Baker three months later after receiving an internal investigation report that revealed improper behavior by Baker that affected multiple female staffers.

Before news of the controversy broke, Esty had issued press releases calling for tougher harassment protections for congressional staffers and was among those demanding that then-U.S. Rep. John Conyers, of Michigan, resign amid allegations of misconduct.